Her Avenging Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 7) (25 page)

There were a few places he had frequented during his times in Hell when he had been stalking Asmodeus and searching for his fortress. One of them was a cave deep in the wasteland, far from all the villages of the demons and the Hell’s angels, where no one ventured.

“Send a message if you need me.” Asmodeus placed his hand on Nevar’s shoulder and squeezed it.

Nevar mirrored him, clutching Asmodeus’s opposite shoulder. “I will, and you call if you need me or… can you get word to Erin to apologise for what happened and ask her to offer us any information she might have on the future she saw? I don’t want to hurt her by asking, but it might help us.”

Liora stepped forwards, twisting her chestnut hair up into a knot at the back of her head. “I’ll go. Asmodeus can open a portal for me and I’ll ask Erin about the vision.”

Asmodeus’s black eyebrows dipped low above his golden eyes and he curled his arm protectively around Liora’s waist, pressing his fingers into her bare skin. “I want you to take Remus with you. He can protect you and he can communicate with Romulus. Tell him when you want to return.”

She smiled up at Asmodeus and ran her right hand over his bare chest. “I won’t be long. I’ll be back before you know it. You don’t have to fret about me.”

His expression soured. “Who says I am worried?”

Liora tiptoed and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I do.”

His master shrugged that off but Nevar knew she was right and the male was concerned about parting from Liora. Nevar could understand why, but Liora was a powerful witch, far more so than her cousin Serenity. She would be able to protect herself while she was away from Asmodeus.

Nevar’s gaze drifted to Lysia where she stood beside him still clutching his hand and he supposed that he would act the same way as Asmodeus if she were leaving him, even for a short time. She was powerful enough to take care of herself, but he wanted to be the one to do that for her. He wanted to take care of her and protect her, so she didn’t have to use her powers.

“I will message you when Liora returns.” Asmodeus cast his hand out and a swirling black portal appeared a short distance from it, the ribbons of smoke spinning outwards until the vortex was large enough to accommodate Liora and the hellhound.

Nevar nodded and called his own portal. He formed an image of the place he wanted to go in his head, an outcrop of rocks high on a hill above an immense plain of black basalt streaked with lava rivers in the wasteland, and stepped into the vortex with Lysia in tow.

His gaze scanned the cragged landscape of the hill as he emerged from the portal, the black pebbles crunching beneath his boots as he called his armour to him. The violet-edged black greaves formed over his boots and his loincloth replaced his shorts. The pointed strips of his hip armour covered it and then his breastplate and back plate formed over his upper chest, each moulded to mimic the muscles beneath. Finally, his vambraces appeared around his forearms.

He kept his wings hidden, unwilling to allow them out when he was unsure whether any demons had moved into the vicinity since he had last been there. It had been many long months since he had set foot in this area, since before he had awakened Lysia. He had spent days, possibly weeks in this place plotting Asmodeus’s downfall and how to use his weakness against him.

He shook his head as he thought about how he had been in those darker days, ashamed that he had allowed himself to fall so far and resort to such cruel and despicable methods of revenge.

Looking back now, he wished he could change everything he had done from the moment he had been forced into a contract with Asmodeus. He had allowed his hunger for vengeance to consume him, blinded by it and unable to see what he was doing to himself, his actions inviting the darkness within him to grow stronger and take root. Asmodeus had only made a contract with him. Nevar had embraced the darkness and given himself over to it.

He couldn’t bring himself to regret everything though.

His foolish actions had brought Lysia into his life.

He had been his own downfall, but she would be his salvation.

He felt sure of it as he led her across the uneven terrain, towards the point where the hill rose even higher ahead of them. The darkness of Hell in this area concealed the entrance of the cave he knew to be there, blending it in with the rest of the black rock that formed the hill.

She would be safe there.

He would bide his time and wait for Liora to speak with Erin about what she had seen, in case his ward could offer him something vital that would help him protect Lysia and stop her from awakening. If everything that Asmodeus relayed to him didn’t give him a way of helping Lysia, then he would do what was necessary in order to get that information himself.

He didn’t want to leave Lysia here in Hell, alone and uncertain whether he would return, but he couldn’t go blindly into the future with her, waiting for something to happen that might end with her awakening as the Great Destroyer if he couldn’t protect her from it.

Lysia moved closer to him as the path narrowed and gasped as small rocks at the edge of the track crumbled away and tumbled down the sheer slope to the lava strewn valley below.

The thought of her slipping on the loose path and falling down into the valley sent sharp claws slicing into his heart and squeezing it.

He tightened his grip on her hand, unable to shake the fear that she might fall and master it. When another series of pebbles clattered down the slope, he stopped, turned to face her and scooped her up into his arms. She settled against him, her heart beating wildly in his ears and her palms warm against his neck as she held on to him.

He turned with her and kept walking, his eyes locked on the small flat area ahead of them where the cave opened out onto the side of the hill.

His heart steadied, the resolve flowing through him bringing strength with it.

Lysia would be safe with him here.

They would wait to hear from Asmodeus.

If his master offered no useful information, then he would do the only thing he could do to ensure Lysia was safe.

He would return to a place he had vowed he would never set foot in again.

He would go to Heaven.

A place where he would have to unleash his darker side if he was to have any hope of surviving the assault of the angels who would be awaiting him.

Nevar clutched Lysia closer to him and stared down into her eyes, warmed to his core by the soft tender look in them.

He would use the side of himself that part of him feared and the rest of him despised. He would embrace all the darkness he held within him and he would use the strength it gave him.

He would do that for her.

He would do that so he could come back to her.

L
ysia sat on the long padded cushion that Nevar had produced for them in the cave and he slumped next to her, rested his back against the black rough wall and sighed out his breath. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, and stretched his legs out in front of him.

“What happens now?” Her voice seemed loud in the dark cave, echoing around the curved walls.

Nevar had assured her this area of Hell was safe, and she couldn’t sense any demons nearby, but it didn’t reassure her. She had been caught up in a whirlwind of new emotions from the moment Nevar had mentioned going to Heaven, and she feared that he still intended to head out on what his friends had called a suicide mission.

Now he was alone too, an army of one, and she knew he would refuse her offer if she said she would go with him.

“We sit and wait to hear what Erin has to say.” The weary edge to his deep voice stirred a feeling in her chest, something akin to fear.

She pressed her hand to her chest, trying to decipher it. Concern. The reason for it seemed ten-fold. She worried that he would leave her and head to Heaven without her. She worried that he wouldn’t return. She worried what Erin would say. She worried that Erin was still upset and that something would happen to the little boy. She worried that Nevar seemed tired, drained of his strength. It was fading away right before her eyes.

“What happens after that?” she whispered and he cracked his eyes open and stared at his boots.

“I do whatever I have to do.”

She wanted to rail at him for that and for speaking only of himself. They would do whatever they had to do. She placed her hand over his where it rested on his thigh and his jade eyes shifted to it.

“You look tired.” She stroked her thumb over the back of his hand and he heaved a sigh.

“Because I am tired. Hell is not my home. I still have to sleep when I am here.”

“And eat,” she said, filling in the blank he had left hanging in the air and had refused to mention. “You haven’t fed since I met you. You refused Asmodeus. You have only taken mortal food… and you know it isn’t what you really need to restore your strength.”

He took his hand from under hers and glared at her. “And what do I need?”

“Blood.” She frowned at him and he looked away from her.

“If I have blood, I will just crave more blood. It’s a vicious cycle. I told you that.” The weary edge to his voice invaded his handsome face, etching it with lines that turned it grim. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “It doesn’t help.”

“But neither does not drinking blood. You still crave it. At least if you’re drinking it, you are stronger.”

His lips compressed into a thin hard line.

“Do not snap at me,” she said, feeling what was coming and unwilling to take the brunt of his anger or back down to stop him from turning on her. She caught hold of his hand and brought it away from his face. “You are hungry, Nevar. I sense it constantly in here.”

She lowered her other hand to her chest and the mark beneath her skin shimmered to the surface, casting a purple glow over them both.

“I have felt it from the moment I took blood from you. It made our connection stronger, and now I can feel you more clearly, but it’s fading.” She traced her fingers over the six-horned beast circling the pentagram.

A beast she would become.

Memories flashed through her mind, a vision of gigantic clawed paws covered in black scales and blood, lashing out at the angels that swarmed around her. The tips of dark leathery wings appeared at the corners of her vision as she fought. Her wings. Her claws.

She dropped Nevar’s hand and breathed hard, fighting for air as the cave closed in on her and the memories rushing through her head became more violent. Each blow the angels landed on her paws and her chest echoed on her body.

“Lysia.” Nevar grabbed her shoulders and shook her gently. “Breathe. In for five. Out for five.”

She tried to do as he instructed but her throat tightened and she gasped as an angel drove a white spear straight through her chest and cried out as fire seared her heart.

“Lysia.” Nevar pulled her against his hard breastplate and wrapped his arms around her. The feel of his hands skimming up and down her back and his warm breath puffing against her bare shoulder soothed her a little. She pressed her hands to his armour and burrowed closer to him, seeking the comfort of his embrace.

She wasn’t there.

It was only a memory.

It would never happen again.

She wouldn’t allow it to happen again.

Nothing would take her from Nevar.

She ran her hands up his breastplate and curled her fingers over the raised edge around his neck. She tugged at it, wanting it gone, needing to get closer to him. She needed him to make her memories go away. She needed to fill all of her senses with him and leave no chink where the past could seep through and taint the present.

“Make this go away,” she whispered, frantically pulling on the piece of armour. It disappeared and she swept her hands over his bare chest, the growl her touch elicited thrilling her and boosting her confidence.

She worked her way across the broad flat slabs of his pectorals, her gaze devouring his delicious body as she explored every inch of it. Her fingers drifted lower, roaming down the line between his pectorals. She carefully traced each line of the mark on his chest, emblazoned above his heart, watching the violet ink ripple beneath her caress. He loosed another moan, the husky sound of it sending a hot achy shiver through her bones, and she dropped her head and kissed the mark that connected them.

His hand came up and he ploughed his fingers into her hair, holding her lips against his flesh. She swept them over the mark and darted her tongue out, stroking it over his warm skin and tearing another deep rumbling groan from him.

Lysia lowered her hands to the start of his stomach. His muscles tensed beneath her touch and she drew back, Nevar’s fingers still tangled in her hair. Her gaze devoured each ridge of honed muscle on his torso as his gaze bore into her. She moaned and lightly raked her short nails over the peaks and valleys of his stomach.

Nevar moaned again and his grip on her loosened. He leaned back against the wall, giving her more access to him, and she ventured onwards, her gaze dropping to her next destination as the dark memories began to disappear, replaced by an all-consuming and driving need of Nevar.

She ran her fingers across the waist of his hip armour.

“And this… make this go away too,” she murmured, breathless with anticipation and the desire rising to new dizzying heights within her.

His gaze darkened, his pupils gobbling up the soft jade of his irises.

The armour around his waist disappeared.

Her fingers touched soft cloth and she moaned at the thought of him removing that item next, revealing him to her. She wanted to lick and stroke him as he had her, giving him the same incredible pleasure she had experienced back on the island.

She placed her right hand on his bare shoulder and lifted her right leg over his, settling herself on his thighs. His hands instantly dropped to clutch her backside and he tried to draw her closer as his gaze fell to her lips, a hungry edge to it. She would kiss him, but not yet. Not until she had satisfied a commanding urge stealing through her.